Expansion joint detail
As promised, some pictures of the expansion joints and hopefully a clear explanation of what I’ve done. As mentioned in a previous post the “straight through” expansion joint had potential issues we were keen to avoid, so this is what we’ve done to comply with the engineering and avoid those potential problems years down the track.
Pic 1 is of course a toad and not an expansion joint. This little fellow was living in the sand pile, some 300 metres from any source of water. We have since uncovered 2 more as we dig further through the pile. Pic 2 is the joint minus the 50mm foam strip that I’ll glue into place once the walls have been sealed. Pic 3 shows the double thickness of the 100mm foam and the preformed urethane ” sausage” that is glued to the wall and held in place with a couple of galvanised screws until the urethane adhesive has had a chance to cure. You’ll notice in pics 3,4 & 5 that the peak in the joint connectors is covered by the foam, what I forgot to get a shot of is that before we pour there is also a piece of foam fixed into the underside of that peak to exclude the mud and allow the joint to articulate properly. The 10mm gap between wall sections on the wall face is ahceived by using 10x50mm pine wrapped in Glad’s “go-between” which nothing ever seems to stick to. It pulls free easily once the blocks are set and is economical to use.
